Is Buying Real Facebook Likes Worth It? Don’t Be Deceived!

Whoever said that money can’t buy happiness didn’t know the shortcut to attracting more fans and growing an online empire– paying for real, Facebook page Likes.

Believe it or not, the success of your internet marketing ventures may depend on how much you agree with this statement.

Likes have become a key element in promoting a brand or a product. As an effective form of social proof, Likes can make others Like you just because others already Liked you. If your e-commerce site has only 19 fans and followers on Facebook, convincing visitors to buy, is like playing darts with spaghetti.

Potential customers gauge your company’s credibility by looking at Facebook, and the quantity of your Page likes can influence their decision to do business with you.

But here’s the thing: buying ‘real’ Facebook likes, can really screw you and hurt your business.

4 Ways Buying Page Likes Can Sabotage You

Whether you are looking to increase your fan base, establish your credibility or boost your customers’ confidence, Paid Likes seem to provide instant results. You can buy Facebook page likes at ridiculously cheap rates that you’d feel like an idiot for not buying. But ‘real’ Facebook Likes are not how they seem.

#1 They make you invisible.

Buying Facebook page Likes is tempting; the companies and contractors selling them exploit your drive to look more trustworthy, attract more customers and earn more money. But these Likes will mess up your EdgeRank score and hide your posts from your genuine fans.

You won’t be seen by breathing and living fans who are genuinely interested in your posts and announcements. Facebook-wise, you’d cease to exist, thanks to your EdgeRank score.

EdgeRank is Facebook’s constantly changing algorithm that determines which content should be seen in a user’s News Feed. It looks as complicated as astronomy at first glance, but this is how your EdgeRank score is calculated:

Edge is a an event that can potentially appear in the News Feed of a user. A comment is an edge. Your new status update is an edge. You get the idea.

Affinity is a fan’s connection to you. The affinity score of each fan (with your page) also varies. If a fan often Likes your photos, comments on your status updates, and shares your content, then you have a high affinity score with the said fan.

For example, you (as a business) post a video to promote a product. Every category carries a different edge weight, so video comments can weigh more than Likes. But reportedly, how often your fan comments on videos, will also be a factor.

How long ago the edge was created, is also considered; your video loses points as it gets older.

Can you imagine the tragic fate of your business page when ‘real’ fans are involved? If it’s true that only 0.2% of ‘popular’ stories ever make it into a user’s News Feed, as a Facebook engineer said a decade ago, you’d be hardly visible to your human fans.

As you can see, Facebook looks at the engagement generated by your page to understand how many people should see your content. The more popular your post is, the more people it will reach. If a real person Likes your page, any updates you post may reach the person’s News Feed and increase your visibility.

Imagine having 5,000 fans who don’t like, share, and comment on your posts. The lack of engagement will hurt your score and lessen your organic reach. Low visibility means paying more for advertising in order to promote individual posts.

Don’t forget why Likes appeal to you in the first place: they promise quick results that can increase your reach and generate more sales. However, the long-term consequences of taking this shortcut can be brutal.

The U.S. State Department, for example, shelled out $630,000 to get 2 million fans on Facebook. Their posts nearly stopped showing to their followers due to the absence of organic engagement. As their engagement plummeted to 2%, they saw that they had spent a lot on fake profiles and bots.

#2 Your ‘real’ fans are bots with fake profiles.

Websites guarantee that only real Facebook users, not bots, will Like your page. Many of these websites even advise you against buying ‘fake Likes’ from ‘cheap sites’.
So, in this context, your paid ‘fans’ could either be (fake) bots, or (real) users/ human beings –who probably operate fake accounts– at click farms in developing countries. Ergo, as if having a low Edgerank score doesn’t suck bad enough, there is no such thing as a ‘real’ fan.

So if you place an order for 1,000 fans, the link to your Facebook account is forwarded to click farms and distributed to closed groups. Click farms can be everywhere but they’re mostly located in developing countries. They employ workers that reportedly get paid $1 for Liking 1,000 Facebook pages, either manually or remotely.

There are also account farms that supply click farms with software programs and fake profiles created through proxy servers. These profiles can be managed remotely using automated software programs like Facebook bots. To imitate human behavior, these bots engage with the fan pages and posts from genuine paid ads, making it harder for Facebook to detect them.

If you ever purchased page Likes, go ahead and check how many of your fans would reply.

Many new businesses struggle with getting the first Likes that can attract more Likes, so they invest in fans and followers to kickstart their page and make them look credible to those who are just discovering their brand. But in the long run, this cheap investment will cost you a lot of money.

It makes little sense to build a Facebook audience with ‘fans’ who have no genuine interest in your business. A paid fan or follower holds no value as an endorsement. Fake profiles or bots can’t buy products, give testimonials, share content, or help promote your new product. So what do you get out of it?

If your page littered with mostly inactive fans, you’ll end up wasting your hard-earned money every time you boost a post. Currently, there’s no way to remove them in bulk, so brands and businesses need to pay for their content to reach the fans who have Liked their page.

#4 They compromise your credibility.

The page Likes that you buy to boost your credibility will ruin it for you.

Savvy users will notice if you have 20,000 fans, but only two people like your recent post. It will make you look unreliable in the eyes of your potential customers. You wouldn’t want to risk losing their trust for the illusion of popularity.

The only ‘real’ fans are the ones who choose to Like your page without getting paid or being forced to, and their emotional affinity for your business is priceless.

Facebook Likes Still Matter, But…

Likes are still a highly effective form of social proof, but they’re not as valuable as they used to be. Facebook introduced the Unfollow Button, enabling users to unfollow pages but still Like them. Your page could have 25,000 Likes, but if half of your fans unfollowed you, fewer people receive your updates.

Customers also look at product reviews, testimonials, and photo comments to get a feel of your Facebook presence.Likes alone do not guarantee engagement and conversion. A social and content strategy is needed to bring in new customers and keep your fans engaged.

So is buying ‘real’ Facebook Likes worth it? Sure, if you have a fondness for socializing with 2,000 bot fans, and flushing money down the toilet. Click farms are the ones that benefit from your patronage, if your idea of creating a great experience for your customers is by deceiving them.

But what if you invest time in acquiring fans you can sell anything to? Genuine fans can sign up for your email list, share your content with their friends, and buy the products you recommend because you’ve earned their trust.

Learn How to Build a Legitimate, Profitable Following

If you’re serious about building your following online, it takes a lot of knowledge and hard work. There’s no shortcutting it by buying “real” Facebook Likes, as discussed in the article above.

If you’re willing to put in the hard work, we offer 100% free, no-strings-attached internet marketing training that will teach you every step of the process. Sign up using the button below, and feel free to comment on this post if you have any questions about the things we shared in this article!

About the Author

I've been in internet marketing for over 10 years, and I've purchased dozens of illegitimate products for the sole purpose of evaluating them and exposing the truth about these products to anyone who's thinking about purchasing it. I never let money influence my rating of a product and your success/safety is my absolute highest priority.
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